Additional information
by John S. Spratt (Author), Harwood P. Hinton (Editor), T. Lindsay Baker (Foreword by)
The Thurber coal district sprang to life in the late 1880s in northern Erath County, Texas, some seventy miles west of Fort Worth.
The mines were opened by the Texas & Pacific Coal Company to fuel the locomotives of its railway, whose tracks crossed the state from Marshall to El Paso. The company also built the town of Thurber to service the mines. It then imported workers from distant points, eventually including some twenty nationalities, whose old country ways contrasted sharply with neighboring farm life. John Spratt grew to manhood in Mingus, just three miles north of Thurber during the 1920s. His chronicle of the Thurber district is not only a nostalgic trip back in time but also a case study of the impact of technological change on one part of modern America.Author Biography
JOHN S. SPRATT, SR. was a professor of economics at Southern Methodist University. Spratt passed away in 1976.
HARWOOD P. HINTON is professor emeritus of history at the University of Arizona and was one of the senior editors for the Handbook of Texas. T. LINDSAY BAKER is director of the W. K. Gordon Center for the Industrial History of Texas located in Thurber, Texas.
Number of Pages: 180
Dimensions: 0.68 x 9.02 x 6.14 IN
Illustrated: Yes
Publication Date: August 30, 2007
